Lean Ground Beef
Beef in the Midwest · down 12% this week
Per a typical 113g serving, scaled from the per-100g figures in USDA FoodData Central (Beef, ground, 90% lean meat / 10% fat, raw).
- 1 NorthwestCheapest $6.78/lb
- 2 Midwest $7.02/lb
- 3 Southeast $7.28/lb
- 4 Southwest $7.75/lb
- 5 Northeast $7.82/lb
- 6 Southcentral $7.93/lb
Buying lean ground beef in the Northwest saves about 15% versus the Southcentral this week.
- How to pick a good one
- Usually 90/10 or 93/7. Worth the premium only when the fat would be drained away anyway, as in a sauce or chilli. For anything where the meat is the main event, the leaner blend costs more and tastes drier.
- What a good price looks like
- Usually $1 to $1.50 a pound more than 80/20, so $5.50 to $7. Under $6 is a fair price. The honest comparison is cooked yield and drained fat: for a sauce, lean and regular end up within about 10% of each other per serving, so the premium is small. For burgers, it is money spent on a worse result.
- What you actually get
- A pound of 93/7 cooks down to about 13 to 14 oz, notably better than 80/20 because there is less fat to render out. That partly offsets the higher shelf price: on cooked weight the gap between lean and regular is smaller than it looks on the label.
- How to store it
- Same as regular ground beef — one to two days refrigerated, or frozen flat. Less fat means it dries out faster in the freezer, so wrap it tightly and use within three months.
- In the kitchen
- Lean beef has no fat margin to forgive you, so it goes from done to dry in about a minute. Cook it to just past pink and take it off. Where it genuinely shines is anything where you would have drained the fat anyway — sauces, chilli, tacos — because you keep the volume you paid for instead of pouring a quarter of it away.
- Getting the most out of it
- Lean ground beef needs help staying moist: added liquid, a lower cooking temperature, or a binder in meatballs and meatloaf. Cook it to just done, since there is no fat margin to forgive an extra minute.
- Greek MeatballsRecipe by Spend With Pennies~$1.16 / serving 3 in-season
- Cowboy Mac and CheeseRecipe by The Recipe Critic~$1.44 / serving 4 in-season
- Impossible Cheeseburger PieRecipe by The Recipe Critic~$1.76 / serving 3 in-season
- Pizza PastaRecipe by Spend With Pennies~$1.86 / serving 4 in-season
- Doritos CasseroleRecipe by The Recipe Critic~$1.91 / serving 3 in-season
- Tamale Pie with Cornbread CrustRecipe by Foodie Crush~$1.95 / serving 4 in-season
See all 249 recipes with lean ground beef →Filter by diet, time, budget, and macros.
Price from the USDA weekly retail meat report (conventional, per lb). Nutrition per typical serving, computed from USDA FoodData Central.
Lean Ground Beef — FAQ
What's the price of lean ground beef this week?
As of the week of September 4, 2026, the price of lean ground beef in the Midwest is $7.02/lb, down 12% from last week. Prices come from the USDA's weekly retail meat report.
Which region has the cheapest lean ground beef right now?
The Northwest has the cheapest lean ground beef this week at $6.78/lb — about 15% less than the Southcentral, where it runs $7.93/lb.
How much protein is in lean ground beef?
A typical 113g serving of lean ground beef has about 22.6g protein and 199 calories (11.3g fat), per USDA FoodData Central.
What can I cook with lean ground beef?
SeasonSort indexes 249 recipes using lean ground beef, each priced per serving from this week's data — starting from about $0.17 a serving. The cheapest are listed on this page, with a link to the full filtered list.